Tonight's JBU292 incident (still in progress as I write this) should serve as an excellent example of widespread media idiocy, and the effect that media misconceptions have on the public.

The main thread on Anet has been moving so fast that most folks are not even reading responses, and as a result, the same questions are getting asked over and over.

A few basics, in the context of an airline operation...

-The flight was BUR-JFK, and thus heavy with fuel for the long flight.

-If you can't retract the gear, you're not going to fly on to your distant destination of JFK. The additional drag would run you out of fuel long before JFK. (See Hapag Lloyd's A310 at VIE some years ago.)

-They can't dump fuel, as the A320 has no fuel dump system installed, nor is one needed. This is an automatic assumption that the media makes--all aircraft can dump fuel. Nope!

-The aircraft can't return to BUR. Runways are too short.

-ONT has one of two main runways closed, so they're down to one. SAN, SNA, and LGB are also essentially single runway airports, and should you divert to one of these places, the airport then closes completely.

-SBD and PMD are seldom-used airports that could handle the flight's landing, but the airline preferred LAX due its ARFF capabilities.

-NKX and EDW are also possibilties, and would sure solve the problem of the media helos. ARFF should be just as good as LAX.

-ARFF folks don't normally "foam" runways (like they always seem to do in the movies) as spark suppression isn't always a sure thing, and the foam can adversely affect the aircraft's handling on the runway (think slippery runways.) This is another media assumption--runways are always foamed. Nope!

-Foaming a thin portion on the runway right along the centerline could be helpful in this case, not for spark supression, but for lubrication. After they get the main gears on, and get the nose gear on, the foam may be enough lubrication to allow the aircraft to bleed off speed and minimize the chance of the nose gear digging in and snapping off, with the fuselage hitting the runway abruptly.

-Sometime, nose gears do snap. AWA has one do so with an A320 that landed at PHX a few years ago, and other than a few evacuation-related injuries, nobody was hurt.

-Numerous jetliners have landed partial gear-up over the years, and while abnormal, it's not the imminent doom scenario that the media is hyping. As the A320 circles, burning fuel, the greater danger in the area is from all the damn media helos buzzing around.

-You can bet your life on the fact that the various media outlets will look for any real/imagined "expert" they can.

-Finally, you can just just about ignore anything you see on TV. Some of it may indeed be "factual" but they don't understand the context of much of anything...

And now, they just landed, and rolled out, all without collapsing the nose gear, and without the airplane blowing up. I hope the media's not too disappointed...

Quoting Bobster2 (Reply 8):Bob Hager on MSNBC just went totally freakin' nuts. He said the plane could have dragged a wing on the runway and flipped over.

Funny you mention him. I was at an NTSB Hearing some years ago (can't recall which crash it was in regard to), and watched him do a "cut-in" for their nightly news. Before they went "live", he was chatting with the techs and camera guy, using what I'd consider to be a "normal" tone of voice and pacing. He goes "live" and delivers the segment with his usual on-screen style and persona. He tosses it back to NY, and is off-air, and he's back to his normal tone of voice and persona again. I've seen this with some other reporters as well.

Seems like it's more important to sell the "sizzle" versus the steak....

Quoting OPNLguy (Thread starter):Finally, you can just just about ignore anything you see on TV. Some of it may indeed be "factual" but they don't understand the context of much of anything

First of all, kudos to the crew for a safe landing. Right on the centerline--beautiful.

I watched about more than an hour of MSNBC coverage, mostly because I was working out at the gym. I despise cable news and this just confirmed a lot of my feelings. Some highlights:

--Safest thing to do would be to retract gear and do belly landing but that's not possible because of gear.

--Problem with gear was discovered when it was lowered. Apparently gear was up during taxi and takeoff and lowered later.

--"Rear nosegear"

--Thanks to completley uniform Airbus cockpits, 320 pilots could also fly the A380, "Which of coure has yet to fly." This came from NBC aviation "expert" Tom Costello

--Airplane has been dumping fuel and will land in 5-10 minutes. Actually it can't dump fuel and landed more than an hour later.

--Rescuers will surely foam the runway (isn't this practice pretty much never used anymore?)

--Constant banter about how passegers could be watching MSNBC on their PTVs. True, but at times shamelessly self-promotional and typical of cable news failure to focus on important aspects of an issue.

I 100 percent understand that everyone is not an aviation expert. Beyond what I learn from A.Net, *I* am in no way shape or form an aviation expert. But facile, incompotent newsheads whose main skill is taking one or two pieces of information and repeating them over and over and over again, every 2 minutes (time of take off, destination, number of passengers) for 3 hours while providing lots of bogus information--do a service to no one.

Paula Zahn at CNN is another clueless reporter. There were too many rediculous comments she made and dumb questions to even post here, I just could not take it any more and switched channels. The only "expert" any of the Newscasts brought in was Captain Al Haynes. It is refreshing to hear someone speak about a subject that they actually know about................Anyhow, the media are bloodthirsty a-holes and I bet they were dissapointed there was not any loss of life............I say, screw the media and GREAT JOB JBL pilots !!